The Ninety-Nine Percent
by Fluffernutter8
Summary: Junior year of college, Logan gets some news that proves that no matter how hard he tries, life is just going to keep throwing him curve-balls. Post season 3, non movie canon compliant. Logan/OC, Logan/Veronica
1. Chapter 1

Two months ago I said I was working on a new fic that would be up in a couple of days. Obviously I was speaking of days on Mercury. Anyway, it should run about three or four chapters, and will hopefully be posted before the movie premier.

I owe my soul and sanity to Ghostcat3000 for her thorough and gentle betaing. She's the best in town (hers and mine).

* * *

_I've grown old before my time,_ Logan thinks lazily. It's true that spending the last week of winter break lying on his couch would not be featured on a late night tv list of "Top Ten Things Logan Echolls Does," but he has reached a state of almost hypnotized languor. It's like what he imagines experienced Zen masters can achieve, so determinedly focused on stillness that he can ignore his bodily needs. He has a bottle of Coke sitting on the coffee table, within arm's reach, but he doesn't move for it. His cell phone chimed a text ten minutes ago, but he hasn't looked.

Eventually, however, he can see the sky darkening, and can no longer ignore his hunger. He can cook well enough to feed himself now (a necessity once his relocation from the Grand to his own small house had brought an end to his ability to rely on room service) but he has a craving for Chinese, so he stands to grab his phone. The text is still indicated when he goes to call for takeout, so he checks it first. It's from Emily, a girl he met a little over a month ago, right at the beginning of break. He figures he'll look at what she has to say, call Ho Lee Chow, and reply to her while he waits. But he's driven back, wide-eyed, to the couch by what he sees on the screen.

I'M PREGNANT reads the first text, 99% IT'S YOURS

just thought you should know

emily btw

And then, inexplicably and, he imagines, nervously: bye

* * *

The last time Logan had thought about having kids was because he had absently answered Veronica's cell phone. It was sitting in the car seat next to him while she was locking up Mars Investigations, and because they had just gotten back together after her summer in Virginia, because there was all smiling and no secrets, he hadn't even thought there would be a reason for him not to pick it up. He had been sure it was Wallace, annoyed that they had not arrived with the pizzas yet.

He had immediately been on alert when the automated message informed him that it was a call from a doctor's office, but had tried to remain calm. _Veronica's birthday is in the summer. She probably missed her annual physical_ he thought, fingers fluttering and spasming around the phone.

"We are calling to confirm a…post-procedural appointment…for…Veronica Mars…on…Tuesday September eighteenth…at…ten o'clock am. To confirm this appointment, please press 1."

Veronica had gotten in the car just then and he had handed the phone to her. "Press one to confirm your appointment," he had said flatly, not looking at her.

"You answered my phone without asking me?" she asked furiously, mashing her finger onto the button.

"I thought it was Wallace." He rounded on her, his body shifting in an aggressive arc in the too-small space of the car. "You had surgery and just forgot to mention?"

"It wasn't surgery, and it wasn't any of your business." She put her hand on the door handle, and he could see the second she remembered that her car was at home, that he was her transportation. He could see the second that she regretted trusting that they could last a whole day without a fight. He could see the second that her Veronica Mars manipulation went into play. "Look, I'm fine. It was a voluntary procedure. I'll get checked out by my gynecologist and I'll be fine."

"What kind of voluntary gynecological procedure does a healthy young person need?" he snapped. But it was a case of his mouth working faster than his brain, because as soon as the words were out, he knew. His voice hushed itself. "Veronica, did you get your tubes tied?"

"No, Logan. I had a hysteroscopic sterilization, actually. I don't want to worry about the Pill, I don't want kids, and if I ever do in the future, I kind of buy into the whole 'giving a home to a needy child' bit. You know me, doing my part to solve the overpopulation crisis." She had looked at his still stricken face. "Come on, Logan. It was just insurance."

"Right. Insurance." His voice was still dead, but he had started the car.

"Tell me a story?" Veronica said quietly after a few minutes. It was something she used to say when their misadventures with the Kane children had tipped slightly over the line and she needed light and grounding. He remembered the first time, the soft drift of her voice as they dragged Duncan and Lilly's inebriated forms through the Kane's rose bushes at three in the morning. He had grinned, then, and although he was drunk enough himself that moving his mouth had felt like a dream, made something up about a crime-fighting iguana.

"No stories this time," Logan said roughly, and shut off the engine.

He tried to put the whole thing out of his mind, had gone along when she had acted like everything was normal, but three weeks later, he and Veronica had broken up and it had slipped down the list of worries regardless.

* * *

He wants to call Dick and say, "Don't ask questions, just take me to the nearest bar and let me get so shitfaced I don't remember anything."

He wants to call Duncan and let the panic he feels out when he begs to know how to deal with being an accidental father.

He wants to call Trina and tell her that she's at this point definitely out of the will.

He wants to call Keith Mars and ask him how to be a good dad.

He wants to call Lynn and say, "Surprise, you're going to be a grandma."

He wants to call Aaron and swear that he will not be living up to his fatherly example.

He wants to call Veronica and hire her to find the way that this isn't true. He wants to call Veronica and tell her he's sorry, to wonder hesitantly if there is any way that she will ever forgive him for this. He wants to call Veronica and have her listen quietly as he talks about his fear and his doubt and his confusion and self-loathing.

In the end, his body stagnates from too much wanting and he falls asleep, still hunched over on the couch.

* * *

Lilly already knew what she was doing the first time they had sex. He, on the other hand, was fourteen and just figuring out how to maneuver with limbs suddenly grown long.

"Looks like something else is having a growth spurt," she had said wickedly one afternoon, reaching for his belt as he desperately tried to play it cool. He had hooked up with other girls before, but there was something about Lilly Kane that shook him up. Her confidence, maybe, or the way that instead of seeming delighted to be with him, she made it seem like he should be delighted that she was letting him be with her.

He hadn't been good the first time, but Lilly had patted his cheek and promised to train him up. "You're going to be _spectacular_," she had winked. "And I'll forbear until then."

And by a few months later, he was very very good. Good enough that Lilly had needed to catch her breath before rolling over and telling him matter of factly, "I'm pregnant."

Every muscle in his body weakened. "Shit." He had clenched the comforter tightly in his fist, squeezing his eyes shut and blowing out a breath before managing shakily, "Shit, Lilly. What do we do? Do we raise it together? My trust doesn't kick in for another few years but maybe if I ask my parents-" He had cut himself off when he realized that she was clenching her lips against laughter.

"I'd love to see their faces," she eventually got out, "But don't worry, you're a few years away from Pampers and preschools."

"Jesus Christ." He rolled off the bed and flung himself toward the liquor cabinet. He wasn't sure that he would be able to make a successful bottle-to-glass transfer, and wasn't really interested in the polite regulation of cups anyway, so he took a direct gulp, and then a few more. When the alcohol- he wasn't entirely sure what he had grabbed- started to flow through him, words returned. "What the fuck was that?"

"Just a little fun." She had come up behind him and wrapped herself around his shoulders. "Just something to shake you up." She shimmied against his back. "Don't pretend you're not getting turned on right now." And he had discovered that as good as sex was with Lilly, sex with Lilly when he was riding on an arc of relief and anger was even better.

But he had always been exceptionally careful after that. That minute of pure panic had been too much for him already.

* * *

Because "karma" is apparently from the Sanskrit for "can't believe you thought you'd ever catch a break, dickhead," Logan wakes the next morning to the cell phone in his hand vibrating and displaying Veronica's number. He is paralyzed enough that he doesn't really have to make a choice about whether or not to pick up, and the phone rolls over to voicemail. Eventually he shakes himself out of it and checks the recording. Her voice rings through clearly, busy and excited.

"Still Harriet Tubman? Guess you must have really overdosed on too much Arrested Development if you haven't changed the inspirational message. Anyway, slacker, just checking to make sure that we're still on for dinner before Mac's thing. And it's my turn to pick, so unlimited breadsticks for all!"

His fingers somehow decide that he should listen to the message two more times before he finally gathers himself and turns off the phone, holding it between his palms and resting his chin on it. He had forgotten that Mac, recently making an effort to bond with her biological family, had invited them all to game night at the Sinclair's. He had forgotten that he and Veronica were going to go together to hang out as the friends they had somehow managed to become. They've been inching toward something more, and he remembers this once again as he realizes that she could have just texted him, but had instead chosen to call, had wanted to speak with him, to hear his voice.

He wants to hear her voice, too, but he absolutely can't face a night of lying to her by pretending that everything is still normal. Still, he wants to keep their friendship intact, so he calls her back. "Don't spill it to Entertainment Tonight, but Trina's been picked up for some decidedly lewd conduct in Malibu, and in the spirit of the season of family togetherness, has called me to come bail her out." It's like he's possessed, because he can see his reflection in the window and he still looks shell-shocked, but the lie comes out smoothly, touched with the appropriate measures of humor and irritation. There's shame, bitter in his mouth, as he realizes that somehow he has managed to regain her trust enough that she does not question him, that she commiserates jokingly about his need to change plans. He calls Mac as well, making the same excuse and apologizing for leaving her with one less buffer person. He says that if he gets back to town in time, he'll try to make it.

"Well, Lauren will miss you. I'm pretty sure she's going through withdrawals after so much Logan-less time," Mac teases, and Logan groans exaggeratedly and flexes his fingers and hates himself.

He doesn't know what to do when he's done. He almost moves to get a drink, even though he has cut back drastically over the last year, to Lynn-Echolls-would-have-no-reason-to-talk-to-him-at-a-cocktail-party levels of sobriety. But then he thinks _You can't drink when you're pregnant_ and he sits with his knuckles pressed against his teeth to keep from screaming and doesn't move for an hour. Finally he texts Emily back.

we should probably talk about this. 12 okay for you?

He wants her to say no, to respond embarrassedly that she had meant to text _Lincoln_, not Logan, that it was all a misunderstanding, ha ha, hope we can forget about this. But she writes back almost immediately:

same bat place.

* * *

Here's the really ironic thing: when he and Emily hooked up, or whatever, it felt good. She had come to the party with a friend who he knew because she had a sister the same age as Heather and they sometimes ran into each other when he was going to stuff her parents were too busy for. But Amber had soon gone to talk to someone else and he had been alone chatting with Emily. As the night wore on they started kissing and eventually she told him that it was time for her to go home, but that her roommate had already left town for vacation. She asked if he wanted to come with, and he said yes, so they went back to her place and slightly better than decent sex.

"You can stay, if you want," she had mumbled after, and he was tired from studying for finals and just slightly buzzed, so he did, even though the dorm beds at Hearst were far too narrow for it to be comfortable. They ate cereal together in the morning- she cross-legged on the bed and he at the desk- and talked about classes, arguing over which of them had the crazier professor: his possibly ex-KGB Stats lady, or her elderly, oversharing Lit teacher. She had walked him to the door even though it was visible from the bed.

"I guess a good time was had by all?" he had said, smiling as she added her number to his contacts.

"Definitely." She handed the phone back, kissed his cheek. "And text me if you want those notes from that Comm class. You'll see in a few weeks. Snyder talks so fast that doubling up is basically a necessity."

He had kept smiling as he walked away, had flipped his phone and caught it, and probably even whistled as he went to find his car. He supposed technically it was a walk of shame, but he hadn't felt ashamed, he had felt _normal_. There was no guilt, no concern for the consequences of what had happened, none of the sleazy disorientation that came from wondering who he had slept with and why, no need to finish catching his breath before steeling himself to tell a half stranger to get her things and go, or for him to sneak out in the night. He wasn't over his relationship with Veronica (he's never over his relationship with Veronica, only betwixt and between) but this somehow felt like the mature version of a hookup. It had felt functional, like he was part of the ninety-nine percent for whom one night stands were not traumatic or borderline abusive.

_I might as well have put a 'kick me' sign on my back for fate to aim at,_ he thinks morosely, and goes to try to drown himself in the shower.

He wanted to bring coffee so that he would have something to do with his hands, but he's pretty sure that pregnant women aren't supposed to drink coffee, so he refrains, figuring that she might see it as unencouraging at best and insulting at worst, and that's not how he wants to start things off. He regrets it, though, because he's going absolutely crazy inside his skin. He remembers where Emily lives, and it just rubs it in deeper that the memories are so clear because it's further proof of how cogent he was at the time, how careful, and so _how_ could this have happened? Thankfully, it's far enough away from anywhere that he suspects anyone from his friend group would be that he doesn't worry about his lie being exposed. Instead he spends his energy stressing over why is takes her seven full seconds to answer the door after his knock.

The February before Lilly had been killed, Lynn Echolls had organized a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. It hadn't been the most popular cause. There were, of course, liberal or pseudo-liberal members of the Neptune community, but it was always easier to get donations for causes people could agree on, like breast cancer or reseeding the green at Torrey Pines. Still, when Aaron Echolls approached people and, squeezing their hands just a touch too hard, told them jovially, "Lynn tells me that we haven't received your RSVP. Of course, we'd love to see you there," the tables filled up.

Usually he wouldn't have gotten involved, but Lynn had been particularly invested in the event. She had remained unusually clear-headed leading up to it, but Logan remembered one night when she had gone just slightly over the limit.

"It's her choice, Logan. If you're ever in that kind of situation, it's her choice. It's her body and her choice and _you will support her_." She had been shaking her glass in his face at that point, hard enough that a little piece of ice chipped off and hit his cheek. He had loved his mother, he really had, but at that point all he wanted to do was ditch her forced family time for some time with Lilly's new custom lingerie from Germany.

Now that he considers it, her words might not have been about the kids in the pamphlets that had been scattered around the living room. If you looked at her resume, it would be obvious that she had gone from rom-com star and action sidekick to voicing cartoon turtles and popping in as the mom on sitcoms just around the time that Logan had been born. And even though he knows that she loved him, as he waits hyperventilating slightly in front of Emily's room, he wonders if it had been her choice to have him at all.

Still her words are all he can think about as Emily opens the door, biting her lip, and he lifts his forehead from where it is resting against his crooked arm on the doorjamb. "It's your body and your choice. What do you want to do?" he blurts.

She looks tired and ridiculously terrified and he thinks _thank God it's break because there's no way in hell either of us could go to class thinking about this._

They sit side by side on the bed and he thinks that she would be offended if he told her how profoundly grateful he is that she changed the sheets. He's hanging very precariously onto sanity and seeing those same turquoise stripes wouldn't be an unlikely candidate for pushing him over.

They've been sitting quietly for a while before he asks again, trying to be gentle, "What do you want to do? Because I'm with you, whatever you want."

"I don't know," she says, voice shallow. "I mean, I'm," she waves a hand around vaguely in the air, "Catholic, but, like, birth control and cheating during Lent Catholic. And having a baby right now would basically screw up my life."

He's about to say, "So we're thinking abortion? Adoption?" when she buries her face in her hands. "I mean, there's no reason to keep it, but I think I'm going to do it anyway. It just feels like…it feels like the right choice."

"Shit. Really? Shit." All of his eloquence and posturing desert him. He isn't sure how to react inside his own mind, much less toward her. Crucially, the terrible little whisper in his mind hadn't snuck out, the one that was saying that leaving the choice up to her was supposed to relieve the pressure of choosing to have an abortion, not justify keeping the baby. Trying to live up to the person he is attempting to be, he pulls himself together to add, "Are you sure?"

She shudders tearlessly, and he feels it run through him as well. "I'm going to think it over for a few days, but I'm pretty sure."

Logan thinks of the fetus evolving inside of her at this very moment and tries to think of the most neutral way to question that. "Do we have that kind of time?" he says eventually.

Emily reaches over to her nightstand. "We have a few more weeks," she says, rifling through a stack of papers. "Abortions in California can be legally obtained until the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, although most providers consider it safer during the first twelve weeks," she reads off one of the printouts, before switching, almost obsessively, to another. "Paternity can be tested at nine weeks with a blood test that carries no risks, so I scheduled an appointment. That'll be in two weeks."

"So… so there's a reason to test paternity?"

"If I got pregnant, then it means my pill failed. In the timeframe the doctor told me, I was…_with_ you, and then there was once with my ex." If he wasn't already feeling disastrous about this situation, the fact that she can't say the word 'sex' to him would have clinched it. She refuses to look at him, so all he could see was the way she was compulsively biting the inside of her cheek.

"Have you told him too?"

Emily gathers up all of the papers, tucking them into a red binder on her desk. For all of her straightening, they have no holes punched, so they slide and fan out of the file. "Uh, yeah. I texted him also. He won't talk about it yet, though, so I'm not going to force it until the test comes back and it becomes an issue."

Rubbing a hand across his mouth as if muffling the words will make them less true, he says, "I guess you'll need me there. To give blood or a cheek swab or whatever."

"Yes." She doesn't look like she wants it to be true any more than he does. And in that moment, looking at the pale tightness of her mouth, any doubts he had about someone playing a trick, any thoughts about his father's sex talk, which was basically a warning that the groupies out there would do anything for an Echolls baby, vanish. Either she is a better actress than anyone he has ever met, a list which includes Meryl Streep, or this is real. He does not react further, but can't tell if it's a sign of increased comfort with the idea or if he's just gradually being submerged into shock.

She crosses her arms, shifting a little. "The test is pretty simple. They'll draw your blood, draw my blood to find the baby's DNA in it, a few hundred dollars, and then they tell us if they match or not."

"I'll pay for it. Whatever you need, I'll pay for it."

"Not for this. I have the money for this. Later, if I need help, we'll talk about it, but I'll be fine for now."

Logan isn't sure how to respond to that. Part of him finds her independence endearing, finds it reassuring that she doesn't want to take his money. But he is panicked despite himself because if he is not going to be able to support her financially, it means having to support her emotionally. And he's not certain he can even do that for himself at the moment.

He flounders for another question, wishing that he had thought to write these all down, wishing he were the responsible type of person who would have bothered. "Are we…are we telling people?"

"I told my best friend," Emily says, looking down. "But she's not going to tell anyone. And I think I'm going to call my doctor from home." She laughs like a cut, tucking her arms over each other. "I still go to a pediatrician. I was supposed to get a grownup doctor, but I've been going to the same practice since I was a kid, and they just kept scheduling me appointments after I'd aged out."

So far he's been shocked and panicked and even angry enough to punch a couple of walls, but this just makes him sad. He doesn't quite know what to say. "So, you'll call me, whatever you decide about…?"

"Yeah, Logan. I'll call you." He gets up from the bed and lets himself out the door. It occurs to him as he walks away that that was the only time she has called him by his name.

* * *

He has these dreams, has had them for years, where it's just Veronica saying his name. She stands in front of him and says his name in all the tones she has for it- upset and pissed and wondering and admonishing and playful- and he wakes up gasping for no reason at all. Sometimes he goes to call her, sometimes the phone has already begun to ring, but he always hangs up.

* * *

Logan hasn't really missed the Grand since he left, but now he wishes for the extensive on-site gym. He takes long runs on the beach and around the neighborhood, but it doesn't have the same mind-freezing properties as lifting weights until his muscles give up. It gives him too much time to think when he really wants to do the opposite.

He's tremendously grateful when school starts again. He quickly adds another class to fill up his time, forcing himself to pay attention to readings he would have skimmed over in semesters past, and even investing in highlighters.

Emily catches up to him one day as he's walking to class. There isn't a lot of mystery to where he'll be; these days he moves mostly between class and home. The time that he had started spending with Veronica and Mac and the rest of their friends has declined. He's been making excuses for a week and a half, and that just makes him feel worse, as if everything is hitting at once.

He and Emily haven't talked again because she had seemed like she needed space, and he definitely needed space, even though it just allowed room for the anxiety to grow. So he's surprised when she seems to drop out of the sky in the middle of the path.

"I'm keeping it," she says, rip-the-bandaid-off quick. "The appointment for the test is next Thursday, at two." She is rubbing her hand roughly over her collarbone. If it's a tic he, not surprisingly, isn't familiar with, and the way that he can know this one secret and none of the smaller part of her makes him want to vanish . "My ex is still kind of…out of it, but if you'll give a blood sample, then we can rule you out. You can come with me, or schedule your own time to do it."

Logan has class at two on Thursdays. "I'll be there."

She gives him the address, on a tiny piece of torn paper that he tucks in his wallet because he doesn't know what else to do, and turns away, walking quickly in the opposite direction.

He goes to class and hopes that they aren't discussing anything important, because through the daze in his head he can't remember what the subject is. When the people around him get up, he goes to the registrar's office and drops his extra course. He might want the distraction, but he probably needs the extra time in his life now.

* * *

In February of his sophomore year, Logan entered a piece of writing in the Hearst arts festival. Out of character, yes, because it wasn't required, and there wasn't a prize, and college hadn't made him into the type of person who wore jackets with patches at the elbows and quoted Kerouac to seem deep. But he had just moved into his new place, and he and Veronica had stopped talking five months ago, and he hadn't just taken newspaper in high school for kicks. Dick kept pushing him to go out, and writing his story had become an easy go-to excuse for avoiding the temptation of getting hammered all the time.

It was a sad story, nostalgic and a little funny. "Characters are explored in a way uncommon for short fiction. Their emotions and their stories are laid bare for the reader to judge and understand," read the commentary that accompanied his entry. He would deny it if confronted, but he reread the review for weeks afterward, sneaking it out before he went to bed like a junkie so he could fall asleep with an idiot grin on his face.

The writing was published in a journal, but he was still invited to attend the opening of the visual art show. There was a part of him that hoped that he would be approached not with a breathless "Aren't you Aaron Echolls's son?" but by someone who would rest their hand on his arm and tell him gravely that his story had moved them. So he put on his best _well, you invited me, so here I am_ casual-formal attire and went.

Once he arrived, though, he wished that he had read the list of contributors more carefully, because Veronica Mars was standing in a blue cocktail dress, speaking to two older women and gesturing to a photograph right behind herself. He was turning to go when a voice by his shoulder said, "You're Logan Echolls, aren't you? I read your story. And I wanted to know if you hate all women, or just the ones who might stand up for themselves."

He was trapped in conversation with a freshman ("freshperson") transfer called Enid for an hour. Irritatingly, and frighteningly, she was clearly cleverer than he was. She was also persistent, so that every time he tried to get out of the conversation by excusing himself or walking away or getting pissed at her, she just kept talking until he came back and defended himself.

Enid eventually let him go and, in the way of things, he turned around and Veronica was standing behind him. It was the first time he had even seen her in months, since their horrible fight. The details of it escaped him, but he remembered the finality of his heartbeat as the door had smacked shut behind her.

"I see things haven't changed," he said, gesturing to her face, which was registering the mix of irritation, disappointment and grudging pleasure that she seemed to sport so frequently around him.

For a second, pissed became her primary expression, but then her eyes softened and her mouth resigned. "I see things have." She crossed her arms in a way that made him wonder why she had bothered coming over to him in the first place. "I...I read your story. I thought that it was really good."

"I would have seen your pictures up close, but I got kind of waylaid by the feminine mystique back there." When she smiled, he couldn't fight the instinct to smile back. Before he could check himself, he asked, "I was going to go, but there's this new all-night bakery, and if you're not busy, maybe we could do apology cookies?" Then, subtly horrified, he backtracked. "Or something suitably not lame, but simultaneously commitment free."

"No," Veronica said quickly, and the look on her face made it clear that she have any more control over her words than he did over his. She closes her eyes for a moment, corrects the course of her words. "I mean, yes. You know I'm always down for a cookie."

They had managed to make conversation for an hour, the kind of meaningless small talk that both made Logan almost forget that she held a lot of the qualities that would qualify her as his best friend, and wish to regain that closeness. Finally Veronica put down her cookie (her fourth, and they were large) and informed him that they were just going to have to talk about it.

Logan had been relying on her typical avoidance strategies to be able to see her again without actually confronting anything. It's an unfortunate time for her to be turning over a new leaf. "I don't really need to have the why we broke up rehash, seguing into the why we broke up argument. I already have my merit badge in that, so it's time to try for the woodworking one." The nature-or-nurture theatrical part of Logan wished that they were someplace fancier, so he could signal for the check or throw money down on the table. Veronica must have seen something in his eyes or the shifting of his movement, because she rested a hand on his arm.

"Maybe we could try working on the communication badge instead?" He looked at her face, so concertedly meek, and settled in his seat again, laughing. Defensively, she added, "I was a Girl Scout."

"Of course you were. Is the communication badge a real thing?"

A reluctant smile tipped up the corners of her mouth. "Just for Boy Scouts, but my dad always kept his old shirt around. When I was little, he would make up all these stories about how he earned his all his patches. Like, he would say that he wrestled a bear for his Wilderness Survival badge." The curls of her smile froze. "But eventually I stopped believing him."

"Good." Logan was aware that his voice was too sharp and choked, but he didn't care. He didn't look at her, though, focusing instead on the crumbs scattered on their tabletop. "I wouldn't want you to go out to the woods to try for yourself." He picked at a nail, under the table where she couldn't see. "I don't mean to blame you, and I know that it's part of who you are, but the way you put yourself in danger…I don't know that I'll ever be able to handle that."

"Maybe you won't have to," and it was the hope in her voice that made him face her. "After what happened last semester, Mac and Wallace sat me down for a quality intervention. Really, you should have been. Cheese curls and everything while they told me how my behavior was hurting me and the people I care about."

"And I'm sure you eagerly hopped on that train." He tried for sarcasm, which usually came so easily, but it was touched by jealousy. He would have given anything for her to listen to him, to just take care of herself a little more, but all he remembered was her anger and rejection.

"I didn't talk to them for three weeks," Veronica said baldly. "But they were right. You were right."

_Isn't that a four letter word for you?_ Logan forced himself to be gentle. She was apologizing, which was all he had sought for so long. But it rubbed him to forget, made him nervous to show her his softness. "What does that mean?"

"It means I'm done." She looked away, and he was glad. "Not with everything, but the really dangerous stuff, the stuff that lost my dad the election and the rest of his hair-"

"And me my sanity," Logan muttered. It is only partly involuntary, but he continued apologetically, "I mean, I know that you probably don't want to hear it from the guy who was voted "Most Likely to Commit a Felony" in our yearbook-"

"Hey, you only got that because I was already awarded Class Skank," she said, lightly joking. He grinned and relaxed a little.

"I get that what you do is important, and that it's a big part of who you are. But I can't say I won't worry less about you knowing that you're spending less of your time around people with criminal tendencies."

"Well, don't count yourself out, tiger." The uncomfortable look that came over her face, the way she couldn't seem to help playing with the wax paper from her cookie echoed the vaguely nauseous feeling in his stomach. After a minute, she looked up. "Look, I know I'm not the easiest person to be around. And you've had reasons to doubt me in the past. But if we could get to a place where we could be friends, I would…I would really like that."

The noise of the shop overwhelmed them, and he just stared for a moment. Finally he said, "You're not the only sinner here, Veronica. And if you…" He cleared his graceless throat. "If you can forget that I used to go around town writing your phone number in public bathrooms, then friendship could just be the everything old that's new again."

The smiles that came over her face was one of the shy, slow dawns that he sometimes saw behind his eyes in the second before he truly woke up. "Deal."

And somehow his prayers that they would manage to actually maintain a friendship were answered. Bad movie festivals and talking Veronica into trying rock climbing eventually became made-up game night with Wallace and Mac and Mac's new roommate Rosa (Parker had transferred to a school in Arizona to get away from everything Hearst reminded her of, and was very happy from what Logan could see on her Facebook page). Even Piz joined them once he had stopped flinching from Logan and alternating between blushing and glaring at Veronica. The glowing in Logan's chest the night everyone stayed up until dawn helping him finally put together the impossible IKEA furniture in his new place was outweighed only by the time that Wallace had mentioned that they should go to a basketball game together, so casually that it wasn't until hours later that Logan had realized that he actually had friends.


	2. Chapter 2

I really apologize for taking this long to get the chapter up. But if I may counter with this: how exciting that we have a movie now?! (Did that random comment successfully distract from my negligence?)

Thanks so much to everyone who's read so far, and infinite thanks to the wonderful Ghostcat, who really got into the trenches with me on this one.

* * *

Veronica is sitting on his couch when he gets home. She is looking down at her phone but before he can even fully finish his thought about somehow avoiding her, she has looked up at him.

"I'm full up on bibles, but thanks anyway," he says, attempting to make her forget that he hasn't talked to her in a week and a half.

"Yeah, we're not doing that." She gets up and follows him as he puts his keys away, as he slowly unloads his bag. "It's way past time to get to explaining why we're having a session of radio silence."

Logan thinks that, just for a change, maybe he should think ahead and try to figure out how to avoid the things that are going to bite him in the ass. But it's a resolution for another day, so he shifts his eyes to somewhere beside Veronica's head and deflates a little. "There's something going on." He can see her body close up out of the corner of his eye, but doesn't hasten to correct her impression. If she's been waiting on the edge this whole time for him to mess up, then it won't matter what he says. He continues dully, "It's not hurting anyone, but it's not my story to tell." He finally gathers himself enough to look at her face. It looks soft, and he hopes that it is not deception. "I didn't want to have to lie to you," he finishes helplessly, moving his fingers in a little shrugging gesture.

He can't remember the last time he was so surprised, but when he looks over, her face is the same. "Okay." She crosses her arms protectively, swings herself so her hair covers part of her face. "We're doing another thing with Mac in a couple of days. Do you want to come?"

Sitting in the Sinclair's living room trying to avoid the Taboo words and Veronica's eyes is simultaneously the best and worst thing he can think to do. "If we can do the normal thing, then, sure, family game night is on."

"Of course I'll take up my usual mantle of keeping Lauren away from you. Don't you worry, smoochie buns." She knocks her fist into the side of his arm and makes a clicking sound at him with her mouth. He smiles and laughs a little. "But if you don't work at it, you'll get stuck on her team instead of mine for charades."

"I've been training. Wouldn't want another 'Bridges of Madison County' disaster." He makes a fist, thumb running over the backs of his fingers. "So, do you want me to pick you up?"

"I think I can make my own way there," she says, and even though her voice is light, her face tilted up toward his, he remembers that she is still Veronica Mars and there's something in her marrow that doesn't let her forgive so easily.

She starts toward the door and he follows her and it's not because of any good hosting manners that he has. "Veronica," he blurts as she steps outside and he is left hanging onto the doorway for stability. "I know it goes against every lesson Jessica Fletcher ever taught you, but can you just let this one stay just as it seems?"

"No one's been murdered, right?"

"No."

"And I'm not going to get called to post bail?" He shakes his head.

"And you'll tell me eventually?"

"When we get to eventually, I won't be able to avoid telling you."

She squints at him, hand on the handle of her car door. "Okay."

He gets a text from her ten minutes later. _I wasn't kidding about eventually_, it says, and even though he smiles, he feels sick at the same time.

* * *

Two weeks later, Logan gets home at about ten. He's pissed off because it was a long day of classes and then he went for pizza with Heather and all she wanted to do was talk about some guy. He'd snapped at her after forty-five minutes because he couldn't handle another second talking about the glories of Doug, and she had stewed across from him until he had dropped her off.

But it's an uncomplicated kind of anger, sensible, cause-and-effect aggravation separated from the thoughts that have been festering in his mind for the past month, and so he doesn't mind it. And then he goes to throw his mail on the counter and notices the large letters that say CONFIDENTIAL across one of the envelopes. The letters are shredded, the envelope drifting to the floor a moment later, and he is confronted with the most passive-aggressively dooming sentence he has ever read.

_The Alleged Father cannot be excluded as the biological father of the fetus based on the samples submitted from the mother and the alleged father and the DNA extracted from the population of fetal cells._

He retches a little, the words _the alleged father_ pounding through every one of his heartbeats. He goes out to the beach, intending to run, but he just ends up screaming "Fuck!" at the sky with varying degrees of intensity and sitting on the sand, head rested on his knees, until dawn. This is no longer a girl he met once saying probably. Now it's science, cells and physicality that are changing his life.

He shows up at Emily's door before human hours have strictly begun. Her roommate answers the door groggily, and he blinks a couple of times because she has been absent for the entire drama and he doesn't even know her name. Emily comes up behind her after a few seconds, which is lucky because Logan can't seem remember how to politely request her presence.

"I assume you got one of these?" he says, brandishing the letter. He focuses his eyes slightly to the left, because he is struck by the idea that there is a human being percolating inside her body and he doesn't want to start screaming again in her presence.

"Yes," she says, so calmly that he forgets her pale face as she thrust the news upon him, or the way she broke a little telling him that she was keeping it, or how she flinched and clenched her fingers around no hand at all when the doctor went to draw her blood. He forces himself to breathe because he is suddenly alone in his panic. But he thinks that she can see it in his face because she continues gently, "Give me a few minutes to get dressed, and we can go somewhere to talk about it."

They end up at a coffee shop, empty except for a hipster looking dude in black typing away on a MacBook. Emily orders milk, although she asks for it in a coffee cup. Logan gets coffee, but doesn't drink any of it, choosing instead to tap his finger reflexively against the side. They are quiet for a while, until eventually Logan realizes that he is supposed to start.

"This isn't me trying to get out of anything," he begins, voice tarnished, "But there's some stuff that you should know about me." He pauses, wishing that there were someone around to script this. "I'm not a good guy. I drink too much and get into fights. I don't know what you've heard about my dad-"

"I'm not really into celebrity stuff," she shrugs, almost apologetic. "'Big movie star' is all I really know."

Logan laughs heavily. This is the first time he has had to tell anyone. With quietness he doesn't feel, he says, "My dad was…he could be brutal." He shifts, sniffs sharply, but continues facing down. "It started when I was a kid and…you took Psych 101, right? So that cycle of violence stuff is probably something you're aware of. I just thought you should know that if you wanted me to stick around, it's something that could be coming to a theater near you." She doesn't react except to take a sip of milk, twitching her nose a bit as she does so. Trying to soften the edges of his voice, he says, "I'll still pay for anything you need, but if you don't want me around, you wouldn't be wrong."

"I want you around, Logan," she says, voice certain. He wonders inanely if shaking her will hurt the baby, or if that's strictly a post-birth thing. "All the literature says that kids do better with their fathers around. But if you don't want to be around, I'll understand. If you're going to do it just because I told you to or you're afraid I'll go running to the Enquirer, maybe it's better if you go now."

"Okay." He scrapes a hand through his hair. "So should I go to therapy or AA or rehab or something? Because I'm not really a nice guy and you need someone who will be."

"That's your choice. I don't know you that well, but you coming to me, sitting here, talking about this with me…that seems like nice guy stuff. I don't think you're a bad guy. I think you're a hurt guy."

"You don't get it, okay?" he breaks loudly. "My dad could go from the best guy in the room to smacking me around in the space of a minute. This person, the person I am right now? He could be gone before you knew it, and if that happened, you would need to run fast and far. You couldn't stay around and hope it got better."

Emily takes an unhurried drink and places her cup back down on the table. She stares at him so deliberately that he has to fight against shifting his gaze. "When I met you, I was on the rebound. I had just broken up with a guy I had been dating for six months. We were naked in bed on my birthday and he told me he had my present." She glares at Logan like this other guy is in front of her. "He gave me cooking lessons because," she leans forward and takes on a mannish affect, "'Your cooking sucks and once we're married I don't want to be embarrassed to have people over for dinner.'" She sits back, folding her arms. "I had told him I loved him two weeks before, and I broke up with him in that minute. I told him I might be pregnant because it seemed like the right thing to do and I was panicking about never knowing who the baby's father was, but I'll never go back to him. I know how to get rid of people who aren't good for me. Right now you don't seem to be one of those people."

Logan makes her come to see his lawyer anyway. "If she ever comes with allegations of abuse, even if they're unsubstantiated, she and the kid get seventy-five percent of everything." Out of the side of his vision, he can see Emily getting a pinched, uncertain look on her face as he says the word "abuse." She pulls him quickly into the hall.

"Look, maybe this isn't…" she takes a breath. "You didn't hit your head on anything while I wasn't looking, right? You're just going to let them give me millions of dollars if I come in with a paper cut?"

He slides his hands into his pockets, calm like he's in shock, a false, temporary thing. "If I ever hit you or the kid, if I ever start getting out of control, you'll deserve the money, and you'll need it."

Quite honestly, it makes him feel better for her to look shaken and uncertain after the rest of the morning. "You washed your cereal bowl after we slept together, even though you made jokes about being unaccustomed to physical labor. But now you keep making it sound like you're going to morph into a werewolf in a second."

His shrug is all gallows humor. "Guess you're lucky it wasn't a full moon that night."

She frowns and he can see that he's finally frightened her into taking the money. She turns to go back and he reaches toward her wrist, although she turns just from the brush of his fingers before he has a chance to grasp it.

"Why is this the only thing that freaks you out? I mean, I've seen enough TLC to know why playing host to a baby generally isn't considered a hobby."

She laughs, a sudden, sharp, punching burst that makes him step slightly back. "Please. You think I'm not freaking out? I peed six times last night. I'm considering moving myself into the handicapped stall to save myself the commute. Once this week I cried thinking about cells being taken over by a virus. I skipped classes to read baby books, and let me tell you, those things should be made into horror movies, no sons of Satan necessary. And I hope this baby doesn't actually need any of the protein they say it does, because I've developed an aversion to eggs, beef, any kind of fish and, weirdly, chickpeas." She laughs again looking at his face. It's more relaxed, more genuine now, and he can feel his shoulders loosening just a little from the sound. "I just figured that only one of us is allowed to be having a meltdown at one time. And see, we did a tradeoff thing. You freaked, then I freaked. Good support teamwork stuff!" She holds her hand up for a high-five and then puts it back down immediately. "Forget I did that," she blurts, clearly horrified at herself, and he finally laughs too before they both turn to go back into the office.

When they reenter, the lawyer takes a turn at attempting to pull Logan aside. After he refuses to acquiesce to a sidebar, the man straightens and says bluntly in front of Emily, "This is an insane move. You realize that, don't you, Mr. Echolls? I can't in good conscience…"

"Fine," Logan says, and, tired of people second-guessing his decisions, he and Emily go to find Cliff, who calls them "you wacky kids," and tells them the contract will be ready on Wednesday.

"Not with seventy-five percent in it, it won't," Emily interjects firmly. "The baby doesn't need six on-call hookers and a Bengal tiger. Think about a more normal person number. I understand why you're doing this, but that's too much." Logan nods, a little reluctant. "Good. I'm going out to breathe some fresh air in an attempt to wake myself up. Because I am growing a human being, I'm not allowed to have coffee, and someone had an early morning panic attack."

"I'll try to restrict my panic attacks to midday hours."

"Hey." She rests a hand on his arm on her way past. "Panic whenever you want. You get your turn. But if your phone rings in the middle of the night, just remember how payback works."

Once Emily is out the door, Logan turns back and raises an eyebrow at Cliff. "Try to remember your midlevel legal education, and make sure that this doesn't go in one ear and out into Veronica's other."

"Oh, believe me, Mr. Echolls," Cliff says lazily, leaning back in his chair. "I'm really looking forward to you telling her yourself."

"Yeah, me too," Logan mutters. He leaves the office, and a lot of his satisfied pride along with it.

* * *

They agree to sit down a few days later and outline what Logan should be involved in. "You're the boss," he tells her, because he doesn't want her to see how clueless he is. It quickly becomes evident that he should have just faked it, because she's a maniac with a pen and six research papers to support his involvement in everything from choosing the name ("it will help you bond better") to being her Lamaze coach ("I saw your face when you came to find out about the baby. You're never going to look at me sexually again anyway, so watching me pant and get sweaty and bloody won't make a difference"). She's very bossy, and he wonders if this is her real personality, or if she's over-compensating and she's really more like the scared, pale girl who still went to the pediatrician. There's a part of him that knows that he should probably put his foot down and set some boundaries, but he isn't sure how to go halfway with this, especially since Emily seems to want him to be her partner. "We're practically strangers," he wants to tell someone, but there's no one to tell.

Against Logan's better judgment, when Emily calls her parents to tell them, she wants him to be around. He haunts the edge of the laptop screen as she takes a deep breath and cheerfully opens with, (also against his better judgment) "Mom, Dad, there's been an accident."

Emily had given him the lowdown on her family, had shown him pictures from her high school graduation, her face a little rounder and blossoming a brilliant grin. Logan had been mostly focused on the smiling, bearish man flanking her, a protective arm thrown around his daughter's shoulder. But he had forgotten that the scariest person in his life looked less like Barbie and more like Barbie's little sister, because although there is an outburst, it comes not from the burly Irish father, but Emily's tiny mother.

Logan remembers that her name is Teresa, but only because after a ten minute rant about making poor choices and ruining her life, Emily's dad leans over and curves an arm around his wife. "Teri," he says quietly. "It's okay." Her dark head is buried in his shoulder for a moment.

"Please don't cry," Emily manages, wincing a little. Teresa's head bucks one last time, and then she stands, looking furious enough for Logan to move back, although there is no way for her to reach him from Connecticut.

"We'll speak about this later, Emily," and she storms out.

One side of Emily's mouth is pinching in as she bites at her lip. Logan stares at her face for a second and then moves into the main part of the screen. "I'm Logan, Mr. O'Connell. I'm the…I'll be taking care of your daughter."

Jim O'Connell peers at him through thick glasses. "Will you? I trust you'll do a good job, then."

The image freezes, a victim of Hearst's notoriously poor internet, but Logan's throat has already summoned the words, "I'll try."

* * *

Emily sits, staring at the computer screen for a while before Logan closes the laptop and gets to his feet. "Let's get ice cream," and twenty minutes later they're sitting across from each other at Amy's.

"It's a little known fact," Logan says, awkwardly casual as a silent Emily manages to somehow lick morosely at her cookie dough fudge mint chip cone, "That they started making Chocolate Bondage here because of me."

His voice jolts her out of her own head although clearly she did not pay attention to his words. "I'm sorry about before," she blurts. "I shouldn't have made you meet them, not when I was just telling them and not when I don't even know what we are. I just really wanted to be able to tell them that I had a plan, that I had people around, that it was kind of normal. Like, 'Hey, I might be ruining my life, but at least I've got a guy here! Now you can finally give Grandma some good news!' Ugh!" She tosses her head before investing herself even further into her ice cream. "It was stupid and it put a lot of pressure on you and I'm really sorry."

Logan looks down at the cup of ice cream in his hands and plays with the spoon. "No, I get it. You need a support system around you, and you want me to be part of that. I probably should be part of that. I just don't want to make you think that I'm going to duck into the phone booth and come out as Superman. But I wasn't lying before. I'm going to try to be there. I'm going to try to learn how to be that guy."

He risks a look up. Emily has her head tilted back. She's smiling a little. She brings her chin down to face him. "Well, knowing to get me ice cream was a good first step."

* * *

He really does try. He manages to attend classes, and deep-breathe himself into going to a few of Emily's doctor's appointments (even though most of the time there he spends having staring contests with the waiting room walls before the doctor calls him in to say that everything looks "tip top down in the old tum." Logan wishes Emily would switch doctors to someone who didn't seem to think he was from nineteenth century England, but she seems to find him amusing). He spends time with his friends, who are only slightly colder as they realize that he's still hiding something from them. He decides to start seeing a psychologist and makes an appointment with student health services before he realizes that he has enough money to buy the student health building, and instead asks his GP for the number of the best shrink in town.

He had refused therapy after Lilly had died, but he thought that he knew something about it. His mom had gone to someone for years who might not have listened to her confessions but at least prescribed her antidepressants, and his dad had brought a life coach to live in their guesthouse for two months when Logan was nine, although he had known even at the time that it was more about proximity to bang her than making changes in his lifestyle.

But his assumptions are called into question when the first session with the highly recommended and very pricey Dr. Derek Remora finds Logan slouching progressively more nervously in a waiting room chair while he tries to ignore what he hopes is very loud therapeutic role-play occurring in the doctor's office.

"You know, I've heard that if you really want to disappear, that closet is an alternate gateway to Narnia."

Logan looks up blankly at the casually dressed woman in the doorway opposite him. She is leaning offhandedly, arms folded and one ankle tossed over the other, as she raises a playful eyebrow at him.

"I've seen that look on plenty of patients before." She tilts her head at the other office where the door is still closed. "He's just dedicated. He'll be the same with you when it's your turn."

"Not sure how reenacting scenes from Streetcar Named Desire will help me with my problems, but I guess only time will tell," Logan says dryly. After a few minutes, a tearful man comes out, followed by a silver-haired guy wearing a lab coat over a dress shirt. "Logan Echolls," he intones solemnly, although by that point the other guy has left and Logan is the only one in the room. Logan follows the doctor, but turns back as he enters the office. The woman has disappeared, and all he can see of her is her heel as she flicks the door shut.

"Let us start with some assessments," Dr. Remora says, and that's what they do for the next few weeks. _Pick one from this selection of picture books. I see. What is your spirit animal? Revealing._

By the fourth session, Logan is ready to give up. If the best doctor in Neptune is content just to fuck around with him, then maybe he's just getting ripped off because he can't be fixed.

"It's not you," he hears from nearby. It's the woman again. She's been there every time he has, but even when he asks point blank what she's doing there, she just makes up stories ("I steal the vending machine key from here every so often because I get a thrill from free chips." "I'm a protester making sure they don't tear down the building." "I have a thing for one of the janitors."). "Sometimes he works for people and sometimes he doesn't."

"Bet the ones he doesn't work for end up in little padded cells," Logan remarks, idly bitter.

"He's too showy for you. And that works for the ostriches of Neptune, but you've got a hair-trigger bullshit meter. You need someone who won't bullshit you back. But it can't be a man, because you'll just get combative and refuse to work with him, and it can't be a woman because you'll try to flirt and charm your way out of any real progress."

"Do you have a list of recommended genderless shrinks, or can I find them in the phone book?" He waves a cynical, underlining hand.

"Hey, if you're old-fashioned like that." She gives a slight, spunky punch to the air, "You go."

Logan takes out his phone and slouches his legs further in front of him. "Well, as much as I want to get my advice from strangers fix, I'm going to stick with a professional."

"It won't work, but, you know, your choice."

"Yeah," Logan says, sneering a little. "Thanks for your well-informed certainty."

"Well, my BA and doctorate in psych might have something to do with that." She juts her chin a little, not even bothering to step forward to shake his hand. "Dr. Darcy Remora."

Logan skims a look for a nameplate on her door, confused. "The lucky wife?" he asks, returning his attention his attention to his phone.

She has an excellent, rich laugh. "Sister. Younger. I'm the second Remora. And I wanted to add you to my list of clientele."

He has the Remora and Remora business card in his wallet, but had assumed it was an affectation, like the totally unnecessary lab coat his current doctor wears.

"Remind me again why I want to get poached by Doctor Second Best?"

"Oh, it's not poaching. The good citizens of Neptune have provided Derek with a vacation home, a boat, and a woman who would be considered a trophy wife if he were a few years older. His bounty overfloweth, so he doesn't mind if I take the more interesting cases off of his hands." She straightens from her place against the doorjamb, shrugging and taking a step back into her office. "But I would understand if you wanted to stick with him. You're supposed to start experimenting with your chi next week. It's all the rage."

Logan starts scheduling appointments with Darcy after that.

* * *

Emily and Logan don't really hang out together. Every so often they'll get lunch together after a doctor's appointment, and he and her roommate, whose name he now knows is Amanda, nod each other when they pass in the halls. Emily doesn't futilely try to keep the baby a secret from the people in her life, but there are no kumbaya bonding sessions between her friends and his. In fact, there are very few bonding sessions between Logan and his own friends. They still talk to him, but the pressure of hiding makes him go home instead of going out, makes him focus on his schoolwork as an excuse. Disappearing is unfamiliar to him; confrontation is more his style. But when he tries to come up with words ("I knocked up a girl," "Maybe you've seen this girl and her rapidly expanding waistline…that's my fault") he can picture Mac's slightly pitying understanding, and the way Wallace will bump his arm and say "you're doing the right thing, man." And then he tries to picture Veronica's face and has to do the focused breathing techniques Darcy has mentioned to ensure that he's breathing at all.

He didn't start to change for Veronica. He didn't hit rock bottom either. It was just him in his room, realizing that he didn't want to be dying alone at forty of liver failure, and trying to remind himself that he didn't get terrible grades and he knew how to interact with people even when they weren't the type to ostracize girls or burn down pools at his command. But the thought of Veronica was perpetual, and the disappearance of that possibility made his body numb. So he takes a page from her book and avoids, avoids, avoids.

But one Sunday morning, he agrees to drive Emily to church. She doesn't go often, but she wants to go today and she asked him far in advance, so he couldn't say no.

"You don't even have to go in. I really just need the ride this time," she had said, and because he and Darcy were talking about cycles, he had thought about gratitude and owing and the fact that he kind of wants to be friends with Emily, and said yes. He didn't want things to be about bargaining between them.

And being the wheels wasn't bad. He had sat in his car for a while, doing some class reading, but by the time people started to filter out he had moved to lean against the car. He looks up from his phone just in time to see Emily step out, which actually makes him smile, until he notices that she is walking out with Weevil. They are chatting as they maneuver down the church's old steps. Emily has been starting to get off balance as her body extends, so she is looking down to avoid the crumbling spots, but he can still see the ticked up corners of her mouth.

"Does knowing about your high school hijinks make me an accessory after the fact?" she is saying. Laughter is still sliding beneath her voice as they approach the car. "Oh, hey Logan. This is Eli. He helped me survive the sermon."

Logan, trapped by secrets and falsehoods and the alternate versions of himself that Emily has never had to face, isn't sure what exactly to say. He glances at Weevil, who is managing to mix amused and poker-face. Even as he opens his mouth, Logan is not sure what will come out, but maybe proximity to the church is working in his favor because at that moment, her cell phone rings.

"It's my sister," she says excitedly. She rests a hand on Weevil's arm. "Maybe I'll see you next week," and she slides into the car with the phone against her ear.

Logan and Weevil look at each other for a second, Logan's mouth lost with the vulnerable slackness it can have in the second before his brain kicks in. Weevil looks up at him from beneath lowered lids.

"Must be so easy for you to fool the sweet ones," he says, leaning almost lazily into the words. "But this one must be extra special if you're risking lightning bolts for her."

Logan's heart rate slows from the barbed familiarity and the words slide out from a gleeful tongue. "Well, she is my…your people use 'baby mama,' right?"

"Weird how I haven't heard anything about that," Weevil returns. "It's almost like you took me off your Christmas card list."

"Figured you could gather the whole family to read about it in the tabs." He shifts a little. Emily, he can see peripherally, is still talking. "Gotta support the rags, you know." As he thinks about it, he doesn't really understand how he's managed to keep everything so quiet, how no student looking for some quick cash has gone paparazzi as he and Emily were leaving the doctor's office. He supposes that it's what comes with living a quiet life: people aren't interested in you. For someone as dramatic as Logan, it's strange being so thankful for that peacefulness.

It's real funny," Weevil continues, and his casual tone makes Logan's back tense up. "I was with Vee just yesterday and she was just her normal level of prickly. And you know how contagious that detective thing is, so I'm gonna Sherlock Holmes my way into guessing that she doesn't know about your little accessory, or her little accessory."

Logan's insides freeze and his mouth moves anyway. "Clearly, Weevs, you need to put the effort in if you want to be Holmes. You miss the obvious fact that my head is not planted on the poor excuse for the Mars lawn, and I'd like to keep it that way."

"You," Weevil says, appraising him from behind crossed arms, "Have one week. And that's only because I want to give you time to make yourself crazy trying to figure out how to tell Our Lady of the Taser about your little Knocked Up situation here."

Problems with Veronica, and Weevil there to simultaneously protect her and torment Logan. It was clear that high school had never actually ended. He flips the bird at the church as he pulls out of the space. Clearly God hasn't decided to step into his life any more than He ever has.

* * *

There were many reasons not to meet in a bar: the ready availability of alcohol, the temptation to drown everything he had to say in it, and the knowledge that there was no reason to pace himself so he could get home because Wallace would be responsible enough to play designated driver.

But he told himself that going out for a beer with a friend was normal, and ignored the fact that he was there half an hour early forcing himself just to sip at a scotch. His hand was already signaling for a second glass as Wallace came in.

"Beer. Whatever's cold," he requests as he settles himself on the stool next to Logan's, and Logan wishes for that kind of casual indifference, that simple contentment.

"Hey." Logan hopes that Wallace doesn't notice that he automatically took a sip of scotch upon his arrival.

"Listen," Wallace starts, turning to look directly at him. "I'm glad you called." He accepts his beer from the bartender with a politely absent nod. "I don't want to get in the middle of things, but whatever secret you're keeping, it's driving Veronica crazy, and that means that she drives me crazy."

There is no new information here. He knew that she must be on edge waiting to find out what was happening, and that he would have to tell her eventually. He still feels like saying something cutting to Wallace that will make him look over in disgust and leave. "Did she pester you to talk to me about it?" he asks instead. "That thing she does where she's like a terrier…it can be brutal."

"Hell no." Wallace slumps back against the stool. "She's in strong, silent mode where she pretends not knowing something doesn't bother her. But man, I have never seen her hold out like this." Wallace gives him a look, the kind can only shame Logan because it's Wallace. Because he knows that Wallace knows the bad things that happen in Neptune and chooses not to let them make him a bad person. He takes another drink before setting the glass on the bar.

"Wallace," he says, clapping him on the shoulder and summoning his smarmiest grin. "I have called you here tonight to tell you my great secret." He can't hold the grin, though, and it drops in degrees. He turns back to pick up and examine his glass in the light. "There was a girl a few months ago. And, you know." He toasts himself, mocking. "Congratulations, Mr. Echolls. You're the father."

This admission clearly goes beyond what Wallace considers the boundaries of their friendship, but he makes a gesture toward the air by Logan's arm anyway. "That's rough, man. That's really rough." There's so much awkward compassion in his voice that Logan feels choked by it. "You've been dealing with this by yourself?"

Everything in Logan wants to say something glib, but he tries to ground himself through Wallace's presence. "Just me, my therapist, and I." He tosses back the rest of his drink. "And in an amazing example of the power of fate, Weevil." He looks down at his hands, at the way his fingers flutter against the bar, before sliding his gaze to Wallace. "I'm going to tell her soon, but I just needed to know…do you think she'll forgive me?"

He knows the answer is no, that no matter how much Veronica is trying to change, she's never going to get past this, but he wants Wallace to lie to him. He wants a plan, because he will do anything, follow any advice that Wallace has, to regain the possibility of being with Veronica.

"I don't know." Wallace says after a minute. "I've known the girl for years and I still can't always figure out which way her mind's going." He squints a little as he looks at Logan. "But have you maybe considered that this isn't your fault? Maybe it's not something that you have to be forgiven for."

Logan flips his glass over so he won't order another drink. He doesn't know what he expected, but he had wanted something more than uselessness.

* * *

The day he tells Veronica is a great one. He turned in a paper on Friday, so he is expecting a quiet weekend. But mid-morning Saturday Veronica shows up at his door with her winningest smile and convinces him that he really wants to spend the day playing backup on a low level case she has.

It turns out that this kind of backup just means standing around chewing on a straw while Veronica plants cameras in a restaurant that seems to have an employee who feels entitled to more than their share from the cash register.

There's an awkward moment as they squint in the sun just beyond the restaurant awning, where the work is done but they can't quite figure out how to transition into their once familiar friendship when everything lately has been so secretive. After a minute, Logan, who can't resist the idea of a day with her, unsuccessfully tries to convince her that going to the beach is a year-round activity. He isn't as skillful as she is, though, so they end up just getting ice cream and eating it on the boardwalk. By the time they're done, Veronica is pulling him toward a cafe, reminding him that she's a growing girl.

"Dream on, princess," he says, taking a risk and patting her head, but they go to get dinner anyway. They pass a karaoke bar on the way back to their cars and Veronica, looking over at it, mentions that the last time she did karaoke she was working a case. Without discussing it, they end up inside.

When Veronica jumps off the stage, flushed and still clearly caught up in her performance of Hot N Cold. She had fun with it, but Logan gets the pointed choice. He realizes that if fate didn't have it in for him, he's ninety-nine percent sure they would be getting back together tonight. As it is, he folds his hands into themselves, fingers to palms, and wishes he were the kind of person who prayed.

She stumbles, just a little, as she comes back to their table. He puts a hand by her waist, although she doesn't really need it.

"What _would _your father say about this type of behavior?" he says, aiming for his usual drollness.

"Probably something uninspired about how his fond memories of Prohibition." Her voice is breezy as she smiles up at him and rests herself against his side. She's at that happy, unconcerned stage of Veronica tipsiness. If this were any other time in their life, this would be a moment where he would put a hand on her face and kiss her. If he hadn't seen a blurry ultrasound image last Wednesday, this would be time for them in the best way they've ever been.

But life has never done anything just because he wanted it to, so he takes a breath. There are a thousand ways to put it, a thousand ways he could manipulate the words, and he doesn't want to say any of them.

"I slept with someone."

Veronica pales and flinches. He tightens his grip on her waist for a moment before letting go. He can't believe he's telling her this with a terrible version of Piano Man in the background. He chokes out the words as quickly as he can. "It was just once. It didn't mean anything. But she's pregnant, and she's keeping it." He steps back, turns away, clenches his hands around the back of a chair. "I'm going to be a father, Veronica." It's a fact, but it sounds lost and hollow as it comes out of his mouth.

When he manages to look back at her, she has her arms crossed. It's as if she's become instantly sober. "Wow. I'm two for three on exes knocking people up. Better get Piz to make sure Piz Junior isn't running around out there somewhere."

Some guy, midsized and buff and fratty-looking, bumps into Logan, barely realizing to mumble a "Sorry, man," as he laughs his way onto the stage. Jolted, Logan tries to cling to the suddenly remembered reality of the bar. He tries to remember Wallace's words: _Have you maybe considered that this isn't your fault? Maybe it's not something that you have to be forgiven for._ "I didn't mean for this to happen, but I'm doing the best I can with it. I'm trying, Veronica. I'm sorry I kept it from you. And if you can't deal with that, or it, or anything, I'll get it." And he would, because he can feel the burning of nausea in his throat at the thought of her having a child with someone else.

As if she can tell what he's feeling, she blurts stiffly, "I can't breathe," and walks so quickly to the exit that he pauses by the table for a full minute before following her.

When he gets outside, certain that she'll be gone, she's leaning against a wall that doesn't look like it's clean enough for that purpose. As he approaches, he can see her cross her arms, straighten, gather herself. "I assume you got a paternity test. The advice given in the Echolls guide to boot-knocking, I'm sure. If she has an in with the testing company, she could have faked the results." She fakes a dramatic sigh. "And you on the hook for child support. You realize that money's one of those things where you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, right?" She finally looks at his face. Her features look smaller than they usually do, tight and tired. "What's her name?"

There's a certain amount of dirty relief in this course of questioning. The Veronica who wants to investigate medical testing companies and pregnant biology majors to help you is the Veronica who will stay. But there's part of him that struggles every day with going to class and not getting wasted, that wants to be something other than a rich screwup who Emily doesn't tell her kid about, and that's the part that grips Veronica's hands and says, "Don't, okay? She's a good person. I believe her, so I can't have whatever this is messed up."

The first time Logan got into a fight was in second grade. He was sent home for the rest of the day, and he remembers his mother sitting down beside him and asking him why he had done it. He had played with the sleeve of his shirt, poking with a finger and widening the hole he had torn there. "He said my new haircut looked stupid," he had told her truthfully.

Lynn had turned away, sighing, and had moved downstairs to make herself a drink. Logan had sat on his bed and kept pulling until the stitching on his sleeve was destroyed and he needed a new uniform shirt. After that he realized that it was better not to tell the truth than to disappoint people. Because he was afraid that one day he would tell her the truth and she would not just go down the stairs, she would go away. If he showed her the inside of himself, the whys behind the things he did, she would leave. It wasn't his last fight, but it was the last one he was honest about.

He lets go of Veronica's hands and steps back. If she's going to leave, he going to let her go, even though he has to swallow to keep from being overwhelmed by the thought. "I slept with someone. I knew we were probably going to get back together soon, and I slept with someone anyway because it was just once and I didn't think it would hurt anyone. I can't take it back. And you can walk away if you have to, but," he glances away, grasping for the control to get the words out. "I hope you don't. If you could just...just keep trying to be my friend...I'd like that."

He feels raw with the words, wishes they could go back to quips and snark that sometimes cut deeply instead of honesty that cut even deeper.

Her arms are crossed again, and he's sure that she's going to spit fire and draw this as the line. But he's forgotten that he's not the only one who's been trying to change. Her eyes are dim and tense and she looks like she doesn't want to say the words. "This isn't something that I'm comfortable with. I'm angry that you keep having sex with people, and I'm angry that I'm angry about that, because you don't owe me anything. And that's not even getting into the part where you're going to have a kid in a few months. But I," she shifts herself and her face softens, just a little. "I like being your friend, Logan. We worked for it, and I don't want to lose you."

He had thought that he could no longer be surprised, but in a reverse of everything in their lives since they were fifteen, he is proud of her. He moves forward gingerly, arms slightly open, and his lungs relax as she allows him to hug her. She is not all there, though, and he knows that not everything is fixed.

"I know you're still mad," he says, hushed and clumsy. "But I don't want to lose you either. And after this long, I think we've proven that we're stuck with each other."

She smoothes out a little in his arms, and because it is dark and something calm is playing in the bar he allows himself to hope.


End file.
